


Five Times Slade Was Jealous

by storiesfortravellers



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Jealousy, M/M, Mild Angst, Mild Kink, Multi, OT3 Solves a lot of Problems, Slade Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 08:28:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1104651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slade grows more and more jealous as he watches Oliver and Shado grow closer.</p><p>Hint: The resolution of these issues may involve a threesome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Slade Was Jealous

**Author's Note:**

> For Ash.

1\. Shado, I can tell, is too similar to me for comfort. We’re allies for now, bound together by a common enemy and my friendship with her now-late father. But her stance shifts, subtly, as I walk into the shelter, her limbs loosen just in case. She might not even be doing it intentionally, and a civilian wouldn’t even notice that she was suddenly in a position with strong defensive capabilities. 

I pretend not to notice that she does this. Naturally, she figures out that I notice anyway. 

It’s okay. I do the same when she approaches. It’s an instinct – to know if someone is powerful enough to be a threat and react accordingly. We trust each other (I hope), but Shado is a warrior, through and through, and there’s no way to trick myself into acting otherwise. 

I spend some time thinking about how alike we are, how rare it is find someone just like yourself: a superb killer with a sense of honor. Shado hasn’t once even suggested, for instance, that we throw Oliver to the wolves to help ourselves. 

I also wonder if it’s something I’ll ever be able to say to her: that we are alike, that I am her. 

That this matters.

I realize that I’m never going to say it on the night the kid and I come back from being chased all over the damn forest. We’re fine – lucky – but he has some scrapes and bruises. One gash that’s bigger than the others. 

She offers to patch him up.

I don’t think anything of it until I glance over and see him smiling at her. She’s wrapping the wound gently, with care, treating him like a fragile little plant that needs tending.

I see it clearly then: she loves his softness.

I turn away.

That’s something I can’t ever be for her.

\--

2\. Shado and Oliver restrain themselves until we beat the shit out of Fyers and his men. Thank goodness for small favors, I guess.

It isn’t long after that they really get started. 

They don’t ask what I think. Not that they should. What Oliver and I do – did – was just letting off steam. I told him as much.

But the kid is in way over his head. 

The first time I see them kiss, they have no idea I can see them. 

I can see Oliver closing his eyes, and he keeps them closed as if there weren’t a danger in the world. She is his nurturer, his mother hen, and he leans into her like a refuge. 

I imagine that he thinks she is soft, like him. He feels her breasts pressing against his chest, the smoothness of her cheek as they kiss, he feels her hair wisping across his face, and he imagines that she’s safe, that she’s an escape from the hardness of this island. 

I want to tell him that she’s like me, that she’s lethal, that she knows better than to form attachments. 

But they don’t know I’m watching, so I sneak away. Shado probably detects that I was there, but Oliver surely doesn’t.

\--

3\. One day, I come back early from gathering edible greens, and I see them: clothes in a pile in the corner, their bodies on Oliver’s mat, hands gliding across each other’s body. They haven’t started yet, not really, but they’re getting close.

I feel something in my gut, something that I shouldn’t feel, and it’s lurching in two different directions at once.

I feel like a foolish child, angry and jealous and stupid. I feel like running in and telling them “Get your hands off what’s mine!” 

I feel like saying it to both of them. 

I backtrack several yards and then make plenty of noise walking toward the entry. By the time I get there, they are dressed and acting as if nothing had happened. 

That night, I keep dreaming of Billy Wintergreen. Of every night we spent together. Of every time I felt safe sleeping next to him, my throat exposed, just asking to be destroyed. I think about all I’d lost due to a man I’d believed in because he had warm arms and a nice smile.

I don’t get much sleep.

 

\--

4\. I know I have to get over it.

So I do. Unlike the kid, I know to do what has to be done. 

I push down, push aside, whatever I feel for Shado and Oliver. I am happy for them. 

They, in turn, are usually discreet. 

After a couple of months, it doesn’t bother me any more (much). Those two are lonely. Oliver is a sad little dumbass, and Shado is still mourning her father. It’s good that they have each other. And it’s even better than neither of them are bothering me.

I actually start feeling very pleased with myself for how well I’ve gotten over it all.

Until Shado decides to have a conversation with me about how concerned she is about Oliver. That he is still processing watching his father kill himself. For Oliver, no less.

“Oliver didn’t tell you that, did he?” Shado says suddenly, seeing my reaction. She seems surprised. 

“Of course he did,” I say. I won’t admit that in all the time I was alone with Oliver, he never spoke of it once. He never even said his father was on his ship. 

She doesn’t believe me, of course (she’s trained as well as I am at detecting falsehoods, or better, since she was trained by her father). 

“Don’t tell him I told you. He won’t talk to me if you do. And he needs to talk to someone,” Shado says, and I resent her for it. That I am somehow conscripted into the care and feeding of her boyfriend. They wanted to be together, so they should leave me the hell out of it.

“It’s good that he has you, then,” I say. 

She gives me a sharp look. “I’ll encourage him to open up to you. You need to talk to him, too.”

“I’m not good at that.”

She pauses, then sets her eyes on me like I’m a target and she’s holding a bow. “I know what it’s like to watch your father die for you. I want him to have your support,” she says slowly.

And what the hell can you say to that?

“You both do,” I finally tell her. 

She nods, a little uncomfortably. She hadn’t meant to reveal her own pain. It’s okay for us to speak of Oliver’s weaknesses, but never each other’s. 

“Tell him I know,” I say. “He’ll understand you didn’t mean to tell me. He’ll come to me if he wants.”

She nods again, this time with gratitude, satisfaction. I watch her walk away from me, back to him, and I wonder if she’s willing to talk about her pain with him. If that’s why she likes his softness: it allows her to be soft too.

I decide it doesn’t matter why she likes him. For all I know, she just has a thing for young and stupid.

\--

5\. It starts when they start whispering in front of me.

Before they had been doing a fairly decent job of acting like a normal couple in front of others. Not that I expect the rules of society to apply here, but they would kiss or cuddle in front of me but never have sex, even when they thought I was sleeping. 

And they certainly wouldn’t whisper to each other like a couple of schoolgirls, looking at me from time to time, just to rub it in that they are obviously talking about me. It makes me feel that old sensation, that jealousy bullshit that I’m not dumb enough to fall prey to.

The thing is, they are incredibly annoying about it.

I swear, they actually giggle sometimes.

It’s enough to drive a man crazy.

I ignore it for a good long while until finally I start cleaning the guns every time they start up. It seems to cow Oliver a little at first, but Shado doesn’t care, and of course Oliver feels safe from me, nestled up against her. 

Finally, I just ask: “What the hell is so funny, kid?”

“Uh…” Oliver has the dumbest look on his face you can imagine. “We were just going to ask you something.”

“What?”

“You want to cuddle with us?” Oliver says with a smile he probably thinks is charming.

“Fuck you.”

“Slade, it’s good offer,” Shado says. She raises her eyebrow at me, and I realize what they’re saying. 

I sit down. I have no idea what to say.

The kid pulls away from Shado and walks up to me. Without warning, he kisses me, and it’s aggressive somehow, it’s different from when we used to kiss (from before Shado came). When he stops, I can see him looking at my eyes, trying to glean some clue. He looks afraid that I might say no.

Shado stands up then and grabs my hand, the other taking Oliver’s. She nods toward Oliver’s mat and waits.

I know, of course, that this is a stupid idea. We’re all going to act like one big sex-crazed family until all three of us get distracted and weak and soft, and the next time a threat comes to this island, we’ll all be killed. 

I plan on saying exactly this.

Somehow I end up saying, “What took you so long to ask?”

“Your stubbornness,” Shado says with a smile, and I doubt that, but I know better than to ask. Oliver and I let her lead us to the mat, where we settle in. 

“How are we going to do this?” I ask. I know my voice sounds a bit businesslike, a bit gruff, but they came in as a unit, so they have the advantage.

“Frequently and with great variety,” Oliver says with a grin, and I kind of want to punch him for his cockiness, but he’s tugging at the waistline of my pants and his mouth is very close to my dick, so I generously let the comment slide.

“Tonight,” Shado answers me, “You’re ours for the first time. So it’s going to be all about you.” She smiles, and part of me is nervous honestly, and that only makes it better.

“Fine,” I say. “But first, kiss. Let me watch, and don’t hold back.”

They look at each other and Oliver shrugs. They lean close and kiss, and it’s harder, rougher than I’ve seen them kiss before, hungrier. I feel an ache, a lust for them, and for once it’s not jealousy.

It’s greed.

I pull Oliver down next to me; he falls on his ass and grins at me. Shado is too dangerous for me to use sudden movements, but she kneels next to me and leans over to kiss my shoulder, her hand working magic as it slides along my dick. Oliver leans down to kiss me on the mouth and I grab his hair, pull on it and make him moan. Shado hears it and her hands move faster, and as I slowly move my hand up Shado’s thigh, the other still gripping Oliver’s hair, I think that there’s nobody in the world enjoying themselves as much as I am right this moment.

Those fuckers should all be jealous.


End file.
